Martin Yan Quotes

When I first immigrated to the United States, there were not many jobs that stood out. So I worked at a gas station, cleaning.

I met an American woman and got married so I had to get a job.

The first time I came here to the U.S. to start a career, it was in 2002 or 2003. Since then, it's been so, so hard.

Integrating is easier when you have a job in Canada.

I grew up in Mexico until I was 16, and then we moved to San Antonio because my dad's business was headquartered there.

My family fled the Soviet Union when I was three and a half years old. Upon arriving in New York City in 1979, my father worked multiple jobs to support us, all the while learning English at night.

When you move from a different country, it takes a while to make friends. I found myself being lonely a lot at first. In New Delhi, I had all my family. But Portland is one of those cities you can immerse yourself in and feel comfortable. People are so friendly.

I was born in Costa Rica and we moved to America where it was a whole new world for me.

Listen, I didn't know how to make coffee when I came to the United States. Because in Colombia the maids do it.

Moving to a new country is always difficult, but the fact my dad and my sister came to live with me was a huge help. That made things easier.

At the age of nineteen and a half, I went to the Land of Israel to till its soil and live by the labour of my hands. As I did not find work, I sought my livelihood elsewhere.

I came over when I was 10 years old, which was very difficult because everybody made fun of me.

I think integration in Norway is, by all standards, going relatively well. People are working, taking education, learning the language.

I always heard that immigrants had a really hard life when they came to America.

My family is Chilean, and I was born there. By the time I was four, we were living in San Antonio, Texas, and I just remember picking a blue bonnet and getting yelled at by some guy with a sheriff hat and a badge. I was traumatized. He told me it was the state flower, and I wasn't supposed to be messin' with it.

We moved to Australia for two years though and that was a little bit tough trying to fit in.

Most immigrants couldn’t give a hoot about their welfare. These people risk their lives. They want to work.

I'm just trying the American dream. To work here in the U.S., you have to commit and be here. For many years, it was back and forth, back and forth, and it didn't work. But I'm always open to working in Spanish.

I - my experience was really no different from any other immigrant that came to this country. It was rough.

My dad, he believed in me. My first year was hard for me. I came to the States with myself, and no one came with me.

I worked as a janitor in Canada for nine months. It's during that time when I experienced extreme homesickness.

My family immigrated to the States in 1981, when I was 14.

The biggest change of my life was coming to America.

When I first came to Columbia University, I was dirt poor. I did not choose to come here - I just ended up here because I had nowhere else to go, having just escaped from China after Tiananmen. I was in a new country where I didn't understand the language, didn't know anybody, and didn't have a penny to my name. So I was desperate and afraid.

I arrived in the U.S.A. in 1935, to San Francisco. I got the boat from China, and I didn't even speak English. I could read a little, perhaps write a little, but that was all. It was a 17-day journey, and I learnt to speak English from the stewards.